Quote Originally Posted by mchome View Post
1) The Qt documentation suggests to use configure without telling that if you did not downloaded sources you will not have it available (if none did not tell me I could never figure out; I thank Zlatomir for this)
It also doesn't tell you to turn on the computer before you start compiling. I think it is pretty safe to assume that a software developer knows that source code is required to do compilation. Personally I think it also applies to other areas of life, like you need to have a car do drive it or have food to eat it.

2) configure asked me about the platform name, but did not tell me where to find a list of possible platforms. If you did not suggest the trick I should have to scroll through 146 files to find the right name
Trust me, it's there somewhere. Maybe not reported by configure but I'm pretty much sure it's somewhere in the docs. Otherwise how could I know it?

3) Now configure does not tells precisely what its problem is.
It tells you precisely what the problem is: "execute: File or path is not found (nmake)".

I can understand you expect to have a magic button that will do everything for you but then I'd expect you'd be willing to pay someone for giving that button to you. Since Qt supports a large number of platforms, you can't expect its developers to build a magic button for every possible combination of programming environments as part of their daily work. Otherwise we'd probably have not much apart just the buttons.

I can only imagine that adding VC to the search path might help.
Then don't imagine, learn your tools.

I must get back in my memory to a couple of decades ago, when I used MS-DOS, to remember how to add a new directory to the search path.
Or you can read Visual Studio documentation pointing you to a script that Microsoft developers prepared for you in case you wanted to use MSVC from the command line and not using a magic button.

I think of search paths as a residual from the old past.
That's probably why you're having problems now. If it were a residue then you wouldn't have to use search paths now, would you?

Even though in general I admire the Qt programmers for what they've been doing during the years and the quality of Qt, I feel that the way configure works is a residual from the past and should be substituted with a gui-based piece of software. As a fall-back, at least detailed instructions on the way it operates should be available, but I could not find them.
It may come as a shock to you but your problems have nothing to do with Qt. I would assume this is all because that's probably the first time you have to do something more complex than checking ip of your computer using CLI.

But let's assume you're right and focus on each sentence you wrote:

should be substituted with a gui-based piece of software
How would you use that gui-based piece of software on a headless machine? Maybe instead there should be two tools -- one CLI based for regular people (including those wanting to do something on a headless machine) and another for people who need to have a button to push? I assume that if a dialog box popped up telling you nmake couldn't be found, it would be much more informative for you than if that message is written in a window that has a black background. A GUI application certainly wouldn't magically find nmake for you.

As a fall-back, at least detailed instructions on the way it operates should be available, but I could not find them.
Which doesn't mean they are not there.